I lived with the suicide bomber

THE man arrested in a police raid on the Manchester base of a suicide bomber has denied any involvement with terrorism. Yazid Hadj-Azzam was quizzed by anti-terrorist detectives for six days after armed officers raided his home in Moss Side last week.

THE man arrested in a police raid on the Manchester base of a suicide bomber has denied any involvement with terrorism.

Yazid Hadj-Azzam was quizzed by anti-terrorist detectives for six days after armed officers raided his home in Moss Side last week.

The house had previously been the home of French-Algerian Idris Bazis, who is thought to have travelled to Iraq and carried out a suicide bomb attack on coalition forces in February.

Speaking exclusively to the Manchester Evening News, Mr Hadj-Azzam said he was stunned to discover his former flatmate had been involved in a suicide attack. He said he rejected fundamentalist violence.

Now he fears being shunned by his local community as an extremist and says he wants to clear his name.

He said: "The police were doing their job and I was treated well. Nobody shouted at me or hit me. From the beginning I answered all their questions and have not said `no comment'.

"I want people to know I'm not involved in terrorism or bombing."

Shared

Mr Hadj-Azzam, 40, who is also an Algerian with a French passport, was a acquaintance of 41-year-old Bazis and had shared a house with him for several months. Police had investigated whether the two were linked in a plot.

Mr Hadj-Azzamtold the M.E.N.: "We had separate lives. I don't agree with attacks. Terrorists who set off bombs are not part of Islam.

"These things happened to me because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and this is what I said to the police."

Mr Hadj-Azzam said that Bazis was a regular worshipper at the Didsbury mosque on Burton Road and was well regarded in the city's Arab community. "He seemed like a good Muslim. Everybody respected him without exception.

“I was working in the night-time and he spent time with his friends so we didn’t really talk. He would go to London and be away for seven to ten days seeing his family. There was never any sign of what he would do. All the time he was quiet.”

Family

Mr Hadj-Azzam said that when he left the Manchester house for the last time in December last year, Bazis told him he would be staying in London for several months to look after his sister

Because of his lengthy family visits, Mr Hadj-Azzam and his other housemates at Great Southern Street were not concerned when they did not hear from him, but rumours of his possible involvement in an attack began to circulate through the Arab community in Manchester several weeks ago.

Mr Hadj-Azzam, who works for a fast food outlet, added: “Nobody knew he went to Iraq. There was never any discussion. He left everything like he was going for a holiday and coming back.”

Mr Hadj-Azzam was arrested on Tuesday last week after a 4am raid on his house on Great Southern Street.

He was held for six days at an undisclosed location while detectives quizzed him about his connection with his former housemate. Detectives also spent three days searching the mid-terrace house and seized documents and computers. Three other people living in the home, which is rented through a private landlord, were questioned but not arrested.

Mr Hadj-Azzam said that he had come to Britain in 1997 after encountering prejudice in France. Initially living in London, where he married a Moroccan woman, he moved to Manchester in January 2003 and settled in Longsight before moving to Moss Side last summer.

Shab Aslam, Mr Hadj-Azzam’s legal representative from Tuckers solicitors, said: “I spent six days representing my client and during that time my client was interviewed at length and at no stage whatsoever was any direct evidence put to him linking him to any acts of terrorism or any conspiracy to cause acts of terrorism.”